Plausibility in film: “No Reservations” (2007)
Still fascinated with the return of cable in my house and the fact that there are channels on which movies are constantly playing, I managed to catch “No Reservations” (2007) after school today from about :50 minutes in up until the end.
While the trailer for ‘No Reservations” was entertaining enough to warrant a watch, the film really is great. The rom-com aspect of it is carried out almost as expected (don’t a male and female lead HAVE to fall in love at some point?), what really struck me is something that I’m trying to figure out how to do in my own films: authenticity and plausability. The restaurant/kitchen aspects of the movie are not only key to the overall story and presentation, but it had a real, tangible… research to them, I suppose. If you told me a chef had directed it, I’d believe you. The food looked great, real, and, being something that was such a focus, really contributed to the audiences understading of the characters.
I’m sure that, to a real chef, there may have been some annoying moments. Maybe or maybe not, but this elusive thing called plausability strikes here as it does in every great film, and we are, here’s the key: Transported to another world. The exact way that this is done I do not know and can not say. But it’s the same thing that made Ocean’s 13 more believable to me than 21. I know a lot of it, and I’m just thinking out loud here, comes from the writer - but authentic sounds make such a difference as well. And beautiful, effective images. And the right casting. I could see in Aaron Eckhart’s eyes that he truly enjoyed cooking for himself and others at all times, regardless of whether or not he can even toast bread in real life.
The coming together of basically every depeartment is what, to me, makes a film believable - but how do you get that? How do you recognize, hire, and then communicate effectively with the best group of filmnakers possible? Is it by accident? I don’t think so, Pixar does it over and over. And I think, in the end, it falls on whoevers in charge, be it the director or producer, to make that happen. But HOW? How does one “make it happen?” this is something I’ll be enquiring and learning about as much as I can going forward, and I’ll keep everyone updated here on this blog. Because when it comes down to it, you can have monsters running a power plant, a robot travelling across the universe, or Catherine Zeta-Jones cooking with Aaron Eckhart. But what takes it from a flick to a film is the care, love, and attention of many to make every film as believable as possible. (via TheTumbler)
